


melioris ævi

by orphan_account



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Creation Myth, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 00:50:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11863188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The history of Astral and Barian.For zexalmonth alternate prompt 'meliorism'





	melioris ævi

**Author's Note:**

> ( based on [this art](http://negikoma.tumblr.com/post/99223651041) and [this art](http://negikoma.tumblr.com/post/98543770126); _melioris ævi_ : '[of a better age](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/auspicium%20melioris%20aevi)' )
> 
> Eliphas, ep. 120: "To rank-up is inevitable. No matter how hard a world tries to expand itself, there will be a limit. Inside such a limitation, the feeling of suspension and repressed thinking will spread. Eventually, the whole world will begin to rust. In order to surpass that limit, a rank-up is required."
> 
> i'm going to hell anyway

 

 

To a girl on the shores of the Sea of Ill Intent, a child is born with the red streak of chaos in his hair. Everyone knows, immediately, what must have happened; she must have met one of the Chaos-infected who inhabit the lands bordering that sea, and given in to their corruptive influence and begotten a child. it is a crime punishable by exile or by death.

But the elders are merciful, and they do not begrudge the child the uncontrollable circumstances of his birth. So he is given into the care of the commune, and allowed a home. He is given, in equal measure, all the affordances given to all the Astral children, on the condition that he ceases, by his twelfth century, to manifest the symptoms of chaos.

No one speaks to him differently, or treats him differently. They are careful not to, regardless of their personal feelings; this is the way of the Astral World. But it is always there just beneath the surface – uncertainty, the fear of something unknown, as if beneath the veneer of ice-blue eyes, he still bleeds red.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_You are the future of the Astral World._

Eliphas is nine centuries old, and the elder named Eli pulls him aside during school break to tell him this. The elder tells him that henceforth, every evening after classes, he will report to the central spire. He will learn by heart the history and future of their world, and become the embodiment of their ordained fate. Ten centuries hence, he will be the guide who leads Astral World into a shining future.

Eliphas is too young to understand what any of it means, so he just replies, "Okay."

 

That evening by the gates of Astral’s highest spire, he arrives to find the elders already waiting for him; they are discussing something, but fall silent as he approaches. As he is escorted through the doors, he sees that in the alcove there is someone else: that boy from the communes that everyone avoids, and he is looking at Eliphas with a strange expression that makes Eliphas feel terrible. In time, he will tell Eliphas that it was pity. "They’ll kill you, I hope you know," he whispers, loud enough only for Eliphas to hear.

"Come," one of the elders says, and Eliphas complies.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

People dislike that which is different from them.

Eliphas does not experience the world as others seem to; it is as if he sees it through cracked glass, or a veil of rain. That ability to distance, Eli says, is precisely why he was chosen. With order comes control; with control, the ability to direct one’s own fate. Far from a weakness, it is a boon.

So Eliphas tries to be at peace with standing apart, and tries to silence the sense that something is wrong. If he succeeds, then it will be his first victory at any of this.

In his eleventh century he stands by the school gates, watching the other children climb the rope nets in the playground to see who reaches the top first, when he senses someone approach. It is that boy that everyone also avoids, again. Eliphas has not seen him since that day a century or so ago —he is very good at not being seen when he does not want to be— but now it seems that he does want to be seen, so Eliphas looks at him.

“You’re cold,” the boy observes.

“Isn’t everyone? It’s always so cold.” Astral World is at a distance from their blue star that provides a comfortable amount of light for plants to grow, but the atmosphere is thin, and does not retain heat well.

“That’s because we’re so still,” the boy says. “Silence, silence, silence. We don’t run, we don’t let our hearts soar like the wind, or reach toward the sun. So our blood settles.”

“What are you talking about?” Eliphas says blankly.

“Have you ever been by the Sea of Ill Intent?”

“We’re not supposed to go there.”

“Maybe you should, sometime. Just to see it for yourself. It’s the one place in this entire world that isn’t blue.”

The boy grabs Eliphas’ hand and weaves their fingers together. His hands are warm, and the sensation spreads from where they touch through Eliphas’ entire body. “You—"

“This is nice, isn’t it?” the boy says, with a small smile, and his eyes are perfect blue as he places his other hand atop Eliphas’ own. “My friends showed me. Come on – there’s fifteen minutes of break left, and I want to show you something.”

Don takes him to a classroom on the fourth floor that is rarely used, and pulls him to the window. From this vantage point the Sea of Ill Intent can be seen, as well as the lands of the Chaos-infected. There is a balcony in the meditation room that also overlooks this place, but Eliphas has never set foot out there.

Over the Sea the sky is storming red, and as Eliphas watches, the clouds are split by streaks of lightning. They say lightning strikes those lands completely at random and turns everything it touches to fire, and that everywhere the Sea reaches, it corrodes the soil away. That is the kind of destruction, brought about by Chaos, that Astral World tries so hard to avoid.

He turns to his companion. “What about it?”

“What do you think?”

“It’s terrible, isn’t it, to live like this? Always struggling to survive, not knowing when you will die. It’s punishment, isn’t it? Those people let chaos into their heart, and let it control their minds and actions, and this is the consequences.”

“What makes you think we’re better off?”

“We don’t live in fear. We don’t suffer pain,” Eliphas says, with conviction he did not know he had.

“If it pleases you to think that way,” his companion says at length. “We should go back, or we’ll be late.”

“You don’t care about those things, do you?”

“Nope. But I know you do.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

_The innocent will that regulates all order, aim for the higher destination, and let the world return to the way it should be._

 

 

“As humans,” Eli tells him, “we are flawed. But those who reach the Astral World are those with aspirations in their heart. While they still lived, they strived to overcome their weaknesses and surpass themselves, and to reach that goal, they cast aside anything that inhibited them.

Now, consider that process again. This time the word is not self, but society. The word is not weakness, but stagnation. The Astral World is bound by limits, and therefore the society experiences suspension, repression and rust. But we know this, and we also know that in the end, will and aspiration can prevail. We can be better than we are.”

_Identify the doubts that turn to hurricanes in your heart, and smother them one by one with sand. Purge, thought by thought, the infecting force; drown in silence, and surface in perfect serenity._

Eliphas is twelve centuries old, and he cannot bear silence where his beating heart used to be. He opens his streaming eyes, gasps great breaths of cold air. “I can’t,” he chokes. “I—can’t.” Failure, he thinks, might feel very much like death.

“You can. You will,” the elder Eli says. “As it is ordained. Now come. We are done for the day.”

Eliphas is twelve centuries old, and too young to understand why it is necessary to rank up. But the elders know, and as long as he follows their will and instruction, they will show him the right path, and be his guide. They say that one day, he too will understand.

 

 

* * *

 

 

One evening after classes, Don follows him to the spire. When Eliphas turns to him with a question in his eyes, he says, “Can I go with you? I’ll hide. Eli won’t know.”

“If you want to,” Eliphas replies, and then makes sure to remind Don that he did, indeed, say that he _wanted to,_ when the latter starts complaining after just five hundred stairs.

At the top of the tower, Don leans against the stained glass window and smiles at Eliphas. “Will your mentor notice if you skip a day?”

“Likely not. Why?”

“I want to duel you. I want to see what kind of dueling belongs to the future of Astral World.”

Eliphas shouldn’t, but he’s intrigued. “Fine.”

So they sit, and shuffle each other’s decks and draw their starting hands. In an ideal situation, Eliphas would already have the cards he needs to ascertain victory. He is not quite there yet. But in time, he will be.

“I want to draw the Numeron Wall.” Don picks up the top card of his deck, then triumphantly holds it face out. “Ha.”

“You make it look so easy,” Eliphas says.

“It just means I care too much, right? If I’m able to do something like Shining Draw in a meaningless match like this one.” He pauses. “But aren’t you supposed to be the future of all of Astral World? Don’t the elders get mad, if you can’t even do something like Shining Draw?”

“They say I’m too young to understand now, but one day I will.”

“Then I also hope that you will. Hey. Since dueling is the means by which all things are decided, if I defeat you, will I become the next representative of the Astral World in your place?”

“We didn’t set the stakes before we began the game. Besides, I’m not going to lose.”

“You sure of that?”

 _Drown in silence, and surface in perfect serenity._ Eliphas turns over the top card of his deck: Rank-Up Magic, Astral Force. “I am.”

Even without Shining Draw, the deck built from the hopes and dreams of all of Astral World is flawless, and Eliphas wins as he knows he would.

As Don puts away his own cards, he says, “Is it really winning, if the deck makes it so you can’t lose?”

“You’re only saying that because you lost. The objective is winning, and if so, then the best way is to achieve it consistently by any means possible.”

“But where’s the fun in that? The excitement of responding to someone else, or not knowing, until the very end, how things will be?”

“There is uncertainty in that, and with it, risk. Those aren’t things Astral World can accept.”

“Then maybe Astral World should reconsider its position.”

Eliphas blinks. “Do you really think you know better? While you stand in this room, that was built for Astral World’s sole goal thousands of years before we even existed?”

“It’s just a dusty old room, isn’t it?” Don replies. “I still don’t know how you spend every day here and not get bored. Come on. It’s late, and I want to look around before I have to go back.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

There are things people can do to make the conditions of their existence better.

Social order, to reduce uncertainty and risk. Specialization and trade, to maximize production through comparative advantage. Sacrifices must be made to attain those things, but the collective benefits outweigh the costs.

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Reconcile the conflicts by seeing the third option that accommodates both, or eliminate that which contradicts the goal, and in doing so, step forward. Rank up. The striving of people to surpass limitations drives the progress of the world toward an inevitable shining future. Therefore, for the sake of yourself, and for everyone, be better than you are.

To one side, Eli nods.

_You are the future of the Astral World._

Eliphas is fourteen centuries old, and as conviction solidifies in his heart like water to blue ice, he thinks that he is beginning to understand. He closes his eyes. He holds a card in his mind as he takes it in his hand, and draws.

_Rank up._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Don, Eliphas thinks, is a very strange being.

His background still follows him and sets him apart. But now he turns his differences into points of fascination instead of repulsion, and his energy and animation bring smiles to others’ faces where there often are none. His presence warms the world in a way Eliphas had not thought possible.

Sometimes they sit, shoulder to shoulder with their backs to the stained-glass windows of the meditation room atop Astral’s highest spire, and duel until night has fallen fully and they both have to go home, and Eliphas notices that he has skipped his meditation for the day, but it’s fine.

(Concession to impulse, a single point of uncertainty, is the seed of failure. Eliphas twists the thought around his fingers, then lets it fall from his hands.)

“Just try it. Just draw, without knowing what you’ll get.”

So Eliphas lets go of the sequence of cards in his mind, and turns over the top one of his deck. “New Order Rank 12, Etheric Maahes.”

“Nice.”

“How? I can’t even use it.”

“Isn’t it thrilling? To draw so well, just by luck.”

“Not really? It’s not the way this deck was supposed to be played.”

“Never mind then,” his friend says. “Keep getting the exact cards you want, if it makes you happy. You do know you’ll have to do this forever, right?”

 _You will be the guide who leads Astral World into a shining future._ “So I might as well get used to it?”

Don just shakes his head and smiles.

“What is it?”

“Nothing, nothing…”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

In class, on the topic of segregation, Don says, “I understand why it has to be this way, but I don’t agree. I wish that Astral World will accept the existence of chaos among them.”

Ordinarily, within the safety of the community of inquiry, his dissenting views spark discussion and bring energy to the room. But this is going too far, and after class the teacher pulls him aside and talks to him sternly.

When she finally lets him go and the room has emptied, Eliphas goes up to him and says, “You’re putting yourself in danger. You know they’re watching you closer than they watch us.”

“Yeah, I know,” Don replies. “But none of you will say it, so I have to.”

“You don’t have to. You choose to.”

“ _Is_ it a choice? I have to defend what I care about.”

“We control our own fate,” Eliphas recites. “You, of all people, should know that. _It_ followed you for so long, through no fault of your own. But you mastered it, and then you eliminated it from your heart.”

At that, his friend smiles, and his hands are terribly, terribly warm as he lifts one of Eliphas’ own to his right temple, and pulls aside the top layer of ice-blue strands to reveal the streaks of shocking red beneath.

Eliphas yanks his hand back like it burns him. “That’s—“

His companion nods. “Chaos.”

“You should be—they said you were rid of it.”

“I’m not,” Don says, with the same slow smile. “I just hide it better now. Who will know?”

“I have to go,” Eliphas says, and his heart pounds with the weight of the revelation as he makes his way down the long and empty hall.

 

 

Against his better judgment, Eliphas tells no one. Chaos is not inherently bad; it is what chaos makes people do that makes it undesirable, and Don has never done anything wrong—

(—has never done anything wrong that Eliphas knows of.)

He thinks that Eli’s eyes linger on him longer than usual that evening, colder than usual as he goes through the meditative exercises, but his mentor says nothing.

He clears his mind, covers the images of fire-red hair and his friend’s slow smile with a veneer of blue ice. He breathes in. He opens his eyes. He reaches for the deck pouch at his side and draws a card.

_And rank up._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“You know,” Don says, sitting on the pallet in the meditation room so Eliphas can’t, “I think you don’t have to reject Chaos in order to rank-up.”

“To rank up, there must be control, and for there to be control, there must be order,” Eliphas recites. “Chaos cannot exist at the same time and place as those things.”

“It can. I know it can.”

Eliphas thinks: no, it can’t, because that is a logical impossibility. But Don sleeps through every math class and either really doesn’t follow logic, or pretends very well not to. “Why are you so adamant about this?”

“The rejection of Chaos. It hurts people, you know. Because you lot think it’s bad, people who have chaos are ignored, looked down on, and cast out. But chaos isn’t bad. I’ll make you understand. You’re the future of the Astral World, so for the sake of everyone, I have to make you understand.”

 _It’s unlike a Chaos-being to be so selfless._ “It’s unlike you to be so selfless.”

“I really can’t lie to you, can I?”

Eliphas waits.

“It’s also because—you’re my friend. So I, very selfishly indeed, want you to understand me.”

Eliphas nods. He doesn’t really get it, but if Don says it, then he will try very hard to make sense of it. “I do understand, you know.”

“Oh? That’s unexpected.”

“You exist,” Eliphas says. “You hold chaos in your heart, but you’re just like the rest of us. You can also rank up. So, I believe there is a way for those two things to coexist, even if I do not know what it is.”

“Then we’ll find it,” his friend says with a smile, and somehow, it warms him. “We’ll find it.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

In Eliphas' fifteenth century, the teacher announces that one of their classmates has to leave Astral World for an emergency, and will not be returning. Eliphas visits Don’s quarters, where there is no sign that he was ever there but a series of notches in the side of the dresser: counting what, Eliphas does not know.

His friend said nothing about where he was going, but Eliphas knows that in the entire world, there is only one place that person can go.

So he takes the leave of absence he is allowed and makes the journey to the shores of the Sea of Ill Intent where the Chaos-infected live. As he passes through their lands he sees, with his own eyes, the corruption. The Chaos-infected are slaves to their passions; their desires, their anger and greed. Pettiness, frivolity, caprice. It sickens him.

His friend sits by the shore of the Sea of Ill Intent, a calm blue oasis beneath the churning sky, the wind lifting his hair so the red shows through. Eliphas thinks, _He seems at peace_ , followed by, _Peace is a strange thing to find in a place like this._

His friend has tensed at his presence, but otherwise shown no reaction of sign or recognition. Eliphas steps forward. “You left.”

At that, Don turns to face him. “Eli found out that I—“ he winds a lock of hair through his fingers, red twining through ice blue— “was lying about my status. He said I can leave, or they can throw me out. So, yes. I left.”

“I mean, you left without saying anything.”

“Oh, you mean you didn’t know?”

Eliphas feels very, very cold. “It wasn’t me who told him. If that’s what you mean.”

“I know you didn’t.” His companion’s eyes glint, and Eliphas cannot read his intent.

“I could never want this to happen. Please, understand—”

“Oh, trust me, I _understand_. Empathy is part of chaos, but you wouldn’t know that, would you? You say all these nice things about reconciling differences, and how people choose their actions, and wanting to finding a third option. But when people like us are hurt, you’ll stand by and do nothing—”

“— stop it. _Stop_ it—”

“See, that right there, that’s an impulse,” Don laughs. “You should eliminate it. You, the future of the whole Astral World. Tell me, why are you here, Eliphas? To kill me, so the elders won’t have to?”

 _I could never._ “You said we’d find an answer. We can still—“

 “ _Can_ I now? Here, in this place abandoned by the world, where the elders turn only deaf ears?”

“—that’s the chaos speaking. Not you.”

“Me and chaos—in your eyes now, they’re the same thing, aren’t they? Wake up, my friend. One day they’ll kill us all. And when that day comes, believe me—I will _understand_ , and I will hate you then.”

There is nothing left that can be said.

 

 

 

That evening, in the meditation room atop Astral’s highest spire, Eliphas turns the encounter over in his mind. Context, implications, consequences. Things lie unfinished between them, but even so, it is fine for things to end. He has learned from it, and he will go on nonetheless. In the end, chaos and the Astral World cannot coexist. There are no exceptions.

Disappointment is not rational.

He shuts his eyes and imagines the sea that borders the Astral World, its waves washing up on an empty shore of white sand. He imagines that it solidifies into a veneer of clean blue ice, and covers the sound of his own beating heart.

He breathes in. He opens his eyes. He reaches for the deck in the pouch strapped to his side, and draws a card.

_And rank up._

 

* * *

 

 

 

On the fiftieth day of his sixteenth century, Eliphas climbs the spiral staircase to the meditation room atop Astral’s highest spire as he always does, and finds Don sitting on his meditation pallet.

 _Get your dirty shoes off the mat._ “How did you get in here?” Eliphas says, more calmly than he feels.

“That’s not for you to know.”

“Get out. You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Like that stopped me before?”

“It stops _now_ ,” Eliphas says.

“Then make me.”

Instead of answering Eliphas turns away and sits down on the floor next to the pallet. Through the infinitesimal space between them, Eliphas can still feel the warmth of his former friend’s hands. Chaos, infecting this entire place just by existing. It sickens him.

He ignores it. He closes his eyes, begins his exercises, clears his mind of all things but the sensation of stone floor cold and hard against his knees. He has thirty exercises to get through in the evening, and he does not know when Don leaves. Somewhere in between ten and fifteen.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Every fiftieth day of the year, Don Thousand makes a pilgrimage to the Astral mainland’s highest spire for the sole purpose of harassing him. Eliphas does not know why he does it, but he does not need to know why to conclude that he should give up on any productivity for the day.

They are both in their seventeenth century and Don lounges on Eliphas’ pallet, his hair loose and spread out on the straw; he has let it grow out, and it has turned completely the colors of chaos now. Eliphas hopes he has hell brushing it out later.

“So, old friend. Did you ever find that answer?”

 _When you left, I stopped looking_. “There is no answer. It is a logical impossibility. Astral World has chosen order; therefore, it will reject chaos. That is the way it must be.”

“Do you remember the second law of thermodynamics? The order you build up so carefully, that you fight so hard to protect, will fall to entropy in the end. Chaos finds a way. Even if it has to wait a hundred thousand years, even if it has to split apart the fabric of reality to do so. It’ll find a way.”

“We won’t let it. In Astral World, we are masters of our own fate.”

A laugh. “ _Are_ you, now.”

 _Drown in silence, and surface in perfect serenity._ “I am.”

“Anyway, I came to say that I’ve been studying too. Surprising, I know. If the goal is ‘to be better than you are’, then rank-up — is just the will to act on that desire, isn’t it? It doesn’t need order or control or any of that bullshit. _Goodbye,_ Eliphas. I wish you luck. Not that you believe in it.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

On the fiftieth day of the nineteenth century, Don Thousand does not arrive as he usually does.

Eliphas is not waiting. He notes the aberration, considers a list of possible causes ranked by descending probability until he finds a satisfactory explanation, which he accepts tentatively as truth, until such time when there is evidence to the contrary. Then he sets it aside.

Likely, his former friend has found some new plaything to satisfy his caprices, and Eliphas can be rid of him at last.

He is still meditating when Ena finds him, breathing hard from running up the nine hundred and ninety-four steps of the spiral staircase leading to the tower’s apex, her eyes bright with something Eliphas cannot recognize. Regardless, it is unbefitting, he thinks.

She turns to him. “How can you just sit there like—"

“Like what?”

“Like nothing’s happening.”

Calm seas. The seas of Astral World are calm, but the currents are strong, and over the horizon there is a gathering storm. “What’s happening, Ena?”

“You blind, deaf, senseless—“ She turns on her heel, departs the room with one last furious backwards glance. “See for yourself.”

When she has gone, Eliphas strides to the window. From this vantage point, he can see everything between this tower and the Sea of Ill Intent.

Above the murky waters of that sea the sky is storming red, as it has not been for a long, long time. Close to that shore lie the lands of the Chaos-infected, and now, he sees that a great fault line divides that place and the Astral mainland. Before his eyes, the fault line widens into a chasm. The Sea and the surrounding lands breaks completely from Astral and falls away, piece by piece, into the vast blue sky beyond until it can no longer be seen.

He feels the tremors through his body, just as he feels tremors in his heart. He touches the windowsill to steady himself, but in his chest is a tearing sensation, as if his very organs are being ripped apart. It is terrifying. It is not rational in the least, and he needs to breathe but he cannot, for fear of drowning.

It washes over him like a tidal wave, and then recedes.

 

 

That evening at meditation, he describes what he has seen, and what he has felt, to Eli in the most precise words he can. Then he asks, “Mentor, what is this?”

“Chaos,” Eli replies. “We all suffer the effects. They saw fit to cause as much damage as they could before they had to leave. But it will pass. Do not worry.”

“Mentor, why did we break away the Chaos World?”

“Rank-up is the future of the Astral World. To rank-up, there must be order. We must control our own fate, so that we may direct and ordain it. Chaos cannot coexist with order. Therefore, it must be eliminated.

_Therefore, it must be eliminated._

Eliphas nods. He takes the image of the storming red sky in his mind, and brings it to stillness. Picks up the edge of the scene, as he would a priceless tapestry; rolls it up, binds it with ice-blue tape made from the silence of the meditation room. The weight of Eli’s gaze on him, staid as white stone, and the scent of salt and ozone.

He breathes in. He draws a card.

_Rank up._

He opens his eyes.

“With Chaos gone from the world,” Eli continues, “nothing remains that holds us back from the unchanging future.  Eliphas, now, you can...”

Eli walks to the crystal case which contains the ornamental headdress forged out of metals gathered from the dust-cloud hearts of exploded stars. It is the symbol of the heights to which all of Astral World aspires.

“Our ordained future—it is in your hands now.”

They are the same height, Eliphas notes with a strange feeling he will call reverence, as he takes the ceremonial accessory from Eli’s hands and dons it. For the first time since they have known each other, Eli bows to him, and is the first to depart their meeting.

 

 

That night, Eliphas cannot sleep.

He tries to calm himself, but every breath is laced with the acrid scent of forest fires. Behind his eyes the image of spires of smoke rising out of the ground, clouds of ash dusting clean and barren soil as the Sea forcibly separates from the Astral mainland. Through the air, the screaming of children and of people who have done no wrong except possess chaos. _You can’t, you can’t take everything away from us like this_ —

Eli’s voice, calm: _But your very existence is an abomination._

Rank-up is the future of Astral World. Chaos cannot exist alongside order, and so it must be eliminated from this world. Progress does not come without cost.

But this is _wrong_ —

—The elders are never wrong.

(“There is a way,” that person had said, his hands in Eliphas’ own as they looked up at the sky containing countless worlds. But there is no way, and they have been deluding themselves all along.)

Eliphas opens his eyes, so he does not have to see that terrible sight, and breathes. He stares at the crystal ceiling, blank as a frozen river; imagines the silent sky he cannot see, full of stars atop a calm, ice-blue sea. His pillow is still wet with tears, but his hands have stopped shaking. He is at peace, or he will be.

He breathes out. He closes his eyes, and sees nothing but silence. He draws a card.

_And rank up._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The history of Astral World is divided into two eras: before the purge, and after it.

Three more centuries have passed since that day. Ena tells him that the Chaos-infected call themselves Barian now, that the once-soft soil of Astral World has been terraformed to rock by the harsh weather conditions and the radiation of their new red sun. It is said that among the Barians there has emerged a god, who even now is biding time and gathering strength, preparing to cross the veil of worlds and destroy the Astral World that had cast them out.

Day after day, by the pale light of the meditation room, something in him simmers and grows still, though he does not know what it is. Ena touches his hands, but it does not warm him, as he cannot warm her. Everyone is cold in this world: still, pure, eyes blue as ice or the waters of the Astral Sea.

The trees in Astral World change, too: towers and spires of crystal, reaching up forever into the unchanging sky. It is as if they, too, are ranking up towards the inevitable future. Cease to feel, cease to need. Perhaps one day they will cease to breathe.

Less often and less often yet, Eliphas wakes with tears in his eyes and a knot in his chest, and does not know why. On those nights, uncertainty spiders through his heart, and with it, doubt. But numb to feeling as he has become, he does not know what is wrong.

 _Nothing is wrong._ He shakes his head. He need only push harder, rank up higher, and these doubts will cease altogether. The decisions have all already been made for him, decided by the exile of a world three hundred years ago. He reaches for his deck, and grasps the ordained future in his hands.

_And rank up._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Astral World’s greatest researchers manufacture, using the very last of the living trees, an artificial fighter who can cross the veil of worlds; who can fight, and be destroyed if need be, on their behalf. The one named Astral meets the patron saint of the discarded in the decided place, agreed on by both sides to be neutral ground: a planet orbiting a middle-sized main sequence star that has delivered countless souls to Barian and Astral alike.

From the vantage point atop Astral’s highest spire, Eliphas observes the terrible fight beneath. There is no affect, only cold observation. _God of the chaos world_ , y _ou were my friend,_ he thinks. _But look what you have become. Look what chaos has made of you._

Different from Eliphas who aspires only upwards, Astral represents the wishes of the world to be rid of that which shackles them. Beneath them, in the red depths of the chaos world, the Sea of Ill Intent parts under Astral’s power. With the last of his strength Astral casts the Barian God into the chasm, and pulls the red waters forth to seal him within.

Astral returns to the world in a terrible state, half his body of memories scattered over the battleground. But despite the loss he is smiling, because the enemy god has been eliminated. The war is over, and the worlds will never touch one another again. Astral World is free; Astral World will finally be pure.

With that knowledge Eliphas’ heart grows quiet, as still and peaceful as the silent sky. He opens his eyes, breathes in the scent of sea salt and ice. He draws a card.

And the Astral World ranks up.

 

 

 


End file.
